Gallup have just released a fascinating poll in the US on attitudes to wealth redistribution. As the report puts it:
When given a choice about how government should address the numerous economic difficulties facing today's consumer, Americans overwhelmingly -- by 84% to 13% -- prefer that the government focus on improving overall economic conditions and the jobs situation in the United States as opposed to taking steps to distribute wealth more evenly among Americans.
What's really interesting is that this is not a party divide, and it's not a divide across income groups, either:
Republicans (by 90% to 9%) prefer that the government focus on improving the economy, as do independents (by 85% to 13%) and Democrats (by 77% to 19%). This sentiment also extends across income groups: upper-income Americans prefer that the government focus on improving the economy and jobs by 88% to 10%, concurring with middle-income (83% to 16%) and lower-income (78% to 17%) Americans.
I can't find a similar poll here - if you know of one, do post a link please in the comments. But I'd be astonished if there wasn't a much narrower gap between the two preferences here in the UK, and probably a complete reverse in much of the EU.
UPDATE: My friend Johhny Munkhammar has alerted me to the Eurobarometer polls on similar questions. They show that 64 per cent think that competition is the best way to secure prosperity, and 24 per cent don't; 62 per cent think the government interferes too much. But here's the big difference: 64 per cent want to see 'equality' and 'justice', even at the expense of freedom.
Call me vicious, call me - as someone did the other day - the sort of person who'd laugh at a funeral. But I don't care.
Please keep him. Don't - pace Trevor Kavanagh - "save this proud man from further torture". The simple fact is I am enjoying watching Gordon B fall apart, piece by over-rated-fraudulent-deserves-everything-he-gets piece.
I'm getting increasingly annoyed by the stream of 'what the NHS did for me' features on radio, TV and in the papers to mark its 60th anniversary. Victoria Derbyshire on FiveLive has people ringing in at the moment with tales of NHS derring-do: saving people's lives, treating them for chronic diseases and such like. People are calling in saying how wonderful it is, it saved my life, we don't appeciate it enough, blah blah blah.
It's nonsense, of course. The examples are simply examples of a health care system doing what health care systems are supposed to do. You could hold such a phone in anywhere in Europe and have similar stories of gratitude. There is nothing unique to the NHS about these stories. Naturally individuals are grateful to those medics and nurses who have saved their life, or helped them in othe ways. But it's not 'the NHS' which has saved anyone's life.
How about a phone-in of lives not saved and treatments denied because of the NHS' anachronistic foundation?
Oh come on, come on: this story - and the examiner -just has to be made up. If only:
Pupils are being rewarded for writing obscenities in their GCSE English examinations even when it has nothing to do with the question.
One pupil who wrote “f*** off” was given marks for accurate spelling and conveying a meaning successfully.
Why? Here's how the chief examiner for the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA explains it:
To gain minimum marks in English, students must demonstrate “some simple sequencing of ideas” and “some words in appropriate order”. The phrase had achieved this, according to Mr Buckroyd.
The chief examiner, who is responsible for standards in exams taken by 780,000 candidates and for training for 3,000 examiners, told The Times: “It would be wicked to give it zero, because it does show some very basic skills we are looking for – like conveying some meaning and some spelling.
“It’s better than someone that doesn’t write anything at all. It shows more skills than somebody who leaves the page blank.”
Wicked? Wicked? Murder is wicked. Not awarding marks in an English exam to a clearly semi-literate child is not wicked but entirely proper. And if you are going to devalue the meaning of words, Mr Buckroyd, what's wicked is the contribution people such as you make to the ongoing British uniliteral educational disarmament.
UPDATE: It's Sod's Law that in a post about literacy I should misspell unilateral.
It pains me to say it (Gooner and all that) but Cesc Fabregas deserves every credit both for his football and how he has conducted himself during Euro 08. Left on the bench at the start, it's easy to think of other players who would have sulked their way through the tournament. Instead, he has been an example to them. And his comments last night were bang on:
It's a long time since [we have seen] a team of that quality, trying to play football and put the ball on the ground and create chances and play beautiful football...I don't think I have seen any teams like that having success. Finally, football has the success it deserves. This the best day of my life as a football player.
My one reservation about wanting Spain to win was their vile, racist manager. But their football was wonderful and the players can't be blamed for their manager's attitudes.
As for his now former Gooner teammate, Jens Lehmann: what a graceless, horrible man. Some of his keeping in the tournament was comically bad, and he blamed Germany's loss on a bent ref:
The referee was a catastrophe and sometimes I think it is fixed when I see such a referee, who is biased and not correct in his decisions.
But what I've never been able to work out is what Caroline Spelman adds to the Shadow Cabinet. Whenever I've seen her, in the flesh or on TV, she seems utterly vacuous. Not especially articulate, devoid of anything interesting to say and generally second rate. Indeed, most of the time she seems to be mouthing social democrat platitudes, but then that's clearly seen as a positive in the Conservative Party at the moment.
She certainly shouldn't be there just as a token woman, because there are many more talented female Tory MPs not in the Shadow Cabinet.
It seems to me that the only downside for Mr Cameron in sacking her forthwith would be the simple - and important - fact of having to sack his party chairman, and what that says about his judgement. But I'd bid her good bye and good riddance.
I'm puzzled by the notion that Harriet Harman is somehow introducing positive discrimination into the UK. We've had it for years.
Is there anyone who really thinks that Ms Harman has got where she is because of innate ability, rather than because, and only because, she is a woman?
I think that someone posing as Kate Hudson, the Chairwoman of CND, has stolen her identity and posted in her name at Comment is Free. Because the piece is so hilariously stupid that it is clearly designed to make her look like an idiot:
Today we heard that the US has secretly withdrawn its 110 free-fall nuclear bombs from an RAF base at Lakenheath in Suffolk. The US has had nuclear bombs in Britain, under the guise of Nato, since the 1950s – outside any accountability or democratic control from the British government or parliament.
Why? Because:
They have been the focus of protest since they first arrived and similar stocks in western European countries have also been the subject increasing protest.
And did you know that CND was also responsible for the removal of Cruise missiles? It's a really funny skit; I just wonder who wrote it - they have a future in satire.
As one of the commenters puts it:
Only now, 18 years after the end of the cold war, are American nukes being removed completely. Hooray! Britain has become a nuclear-weapon free zone has it?
ament. Instead, he has been an example to them. And 
